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“Some people genuinely think we’re in a relationship. That is just, it’s absolutely—“
“But haven’t you two kissed?”
“Huh?”
“Haven’t you two kissed?”
“No. No, we haven’t. It’s just—“
That’s it. He can’t take anymore.
He’s been standing in a corner listening to all this spilling out of Louis’ mouth for a good five minutes now and he just can’t take it anymore.
This day had already been hell to live through. They’d been doing interviews for hours, he wasn’t feeling good to begin with and then being paired off with Niall while the other three did their separate interviews just made him more frustrated. Don’t get him wrong, he loves Niall to death but sometimes this stupid, immature bid on Management’s part to keep him and Louis separate is just ridiculous.
It would be so much easier to just sit as a group and finish the thing already rather than being paired off and then wait around while the other group gets interviewed. And all this just so he and Louis wouldn’t interact on camera.
He is done with this stupidity.
Being irritated is never good when you’re going from one interview to the next in a matter of minutes. And then it’d gotten worse when he had to stand around and listen to Louis squash any questions asked about the two of them.
It wasn’t just that Louis denies it, it’s that he does it vehemently. And so quickly like the idea offends him so much that he thinks it’s ridiculous he’s even being asked about it.
And that’s what he can’t take.
Niall looks at him with a surprised expression when he can’t help but grit his teeth when the interviewer brings up one of the most upsetting things in his life.
“What about the famous ‘Larry is bullshit’ tweet though? Many ‘shippers’ claim that wasn’t you but some intern—“
He’s on the verge of losing it as the words keep coming out of her mouth and Niall looks more surprised with his eyes narrowed from where’s standing right next to him.
Harry’s trying to keep it in, gritting his teeth is okay but he can’t act outwardly.
And then Louis laughs loudly, he’s clutching his belly with his head thrown back and he’s laughing. Liam and Zayn are smiling next to him.
“I can assure you that no one else has access to my twitter but me. I don’t know how people come up with these crazy theories. Every tweet from my account is—“
He tries, God does he try to keep it all in and not react but when Louis chuckles while explaining how he’d called the most important thing to Harry, ‘bullshit’, he can’t take it anymore.
He storms out of the room without looking back.
He can hear Niall shouting behind him and he hadn’t missed Louis whipping his head around to look when Harry had started running but he can’t stop.
He stops when he gets to the roof of the building, it’s just like roofs are on the telly. There are huge steel bars and other weird looking concrete structures but it’s dark and he doesn’t care. He’s got a bottle of strong Irish whiskey clutched in his hand that he’d stolen from Niall’s stuff while rushing out. He is going to be mad but Harry couldn’t care less right now.
He walks over to the edge of the roof while chugging whiskey without a second thought. It burns as it goes down his throat and his stomach gives an unpleasant tug because he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. His steps get smaller as he gets closer to the edge, and he knows he shouldn’t go closer. He can feel the familiar buzz under his skin and the thoughts in his head getting a bit fuzzier but he still climbs on the ledge and stands right on the edge of the ten storey building.
He hears his mum’s voice in his head telling him to step down from the ledge and sit down, he can feel his head spin when he looks down at the street. The cars look tiny and the whole city is lit up and it looks so alive from up here. But he is dead inside. He has been for a while now.
Then he hears the one voice that could probably get him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. No, it could definitely get him to do anything.
“Harry! Get down from there! What the fuck are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
He mutters before bringing the bottle to his lips and taking another swig. The wind is blowing softly through his greasy hair and the familiar numbness is settling into his bones.
“Get the fuck down! Now!”
Louis is standing a few feet away and he looks delirious. Harry chuckles a little before turning his back on Louis to gaze down at the city.
He knows Louis’ scared of heights, well he won’t admit it in so many words. He’d never say he was scared, always say something like ‘I’m a bit squeamish about heights, I’d just rather not look down from a building is all. It’s not that I’m scared.’
But he is. Harry knows he had an accident as a kid and now he’d much rather prance around like a lion in a cage, a few feet away from him while yelling rather than moving to the edge.
“Harold, step down from the edge right this minute! Or I’m going to call Anne and tell her what an idiot you’re being!”
He turns around at that and finds Louis a bit closer than he was a moment ago.
“That’s the best you can do? Call my mum? See, unlike you I don’t let my mum fight all my battles.”
He knows he’s crossing a line but the liquid courage flowing through him right now won’t let him care. He says it with a bite too just to make it sting that much more and he sees Louis flinch back at his words. It doesn’t give him the satisfaction that he was hoping it would.
“What? Why are you being like this?”
“Being like what? Honest? I thought we were being brutally honest here? Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Harry, you’re pissed and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Half of that bottle’s already gone, just get down from that ledge and then we can talk. Come on—“
“Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about, is there? It’s BULLSHIT. Isn’t it?”
“Wha—“
Louis is cut off by a loud banging sound that Harry reckons is coming from the huge steel door that leads to the roof. It sounds like someone’s pounding on it from the other side.
“I closed it. Thought I might have better luck with getting you downstairs if no one else was here.”
Louis mumbles slowly but Harry catches every word clearly because when Louis talks, Harry listens.
“Look, Haz just get down from there please. It’s not safe and you’re pissed. I don’t want you to hurt yours—“
“Should’ve thought of that before you went and did it to me yourself.”
He wants to shut up, just be quiet and keep it all in like he has for years but today feels like he just can’t anymore. Like he’s reached his limit and he won’t be able to keep quiet ever again.
“What are you talking about, Harry? When did I hurt you?”
“When didn’t you? You’ve been leading me on for three years now and I am a fool for letting you. All this time you’ve been jerking me around and—“
“What the fuck are you on about?”
“Remember Fiji? When you just up and left without telling anyone in the middle of tour because you weren’t feeling so good. And yet you came back glowing the day I broke up with Taylor. You never liked her, did you? Always made a good joke at her expense. Why don’t you like her, Louis?”
“Is this about her? What the fuck has gotten into you, Harry? Why are you talking about—“
“This is about you. And me. And why every time I get a girlfriend you look like you’re two seconds away from mass homicide or suicide. Why every time I try to move on you pull me right back in and then leave me hanging. While you have a steady girlfriend for years. I mean sure, it’s all bullshit. None of it is true. You definitely don’t have any problems with me dating anyone.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t give two shits about Taylor but it has nothing to do with you. I just don’t like her.”
“And Caroline, what about her? Don’t like her either? Got nothing to do with me? Because it might not be caught on camera but I saw you looking at her like she had just stolen something precious from you. And I remember you teasing me merciless about her too, might play it up for the cameras but you and I both know you came to me that night asking me to break it off with her. What was that, huh?”
“The woman was twice your age! I wasn’t gonna let her date you!”
“Why not?”
“I just told you! She was almost your mum’s age!”
“Okay, what about Daniel?”
“What about him?”
“Oh, are we still pretending that night didn’t happen?”
“Just get down from there and let’s—“
“Oh we are! Okay, good to know.”
“Harry, just please leave it—“
“No, Louis. I am not going to just leave it. That’s what I’ve been doing for years now and I can’t leave it anymore. So answer me then, why did you drag me out of the club that night? Do you remember or should I remind you a bit? That night when I told you I was going out with Daniel and Gemma and we got into a row so I left but you followed me to the club and dragged me out to the lane—“
“Yes! I know, I. Why are we discussing this right now? Do you really want to have this conver—“
“Yes I do. I do want to have this conversation now so why don’t you tell me why exactly you acted like a jealous boyfriend when I went out with a bloke?”
“It wasn’t like that. I just didn’t trust that man and you were being an idiot about—“
“Oh so you’ve got an excuse for that too. Okay. How about we talk about how you kissed me that night in the alley? Did you do that because you didn’t trust Dan too?”
“I didn’t mean to, it was just a heat of the moment kind of—“
“Let’s talk about heat of the moment then. How many times have we been in the moment exactly? Because that wasn’t the first time or the last you kissed me. You tend to do that a lot when I’m dating people and then conveniently forget about it the next day. And I always thought I must be reading this wrong but I doubt that even I could misread you leaving an angry mark on my neck the first night you found out about Kendall.”
“That was just a drunk—“
“Don’t. Louis, don’t insult me. Look, I don’t know what you’re doing but I just can’t play this game with you anymore. You get jealous when I go out with someone, just imagine how I must feel watching you play house with your girlfriend for years. And I’m okay with it, I’ll live but then you decide you’re going to string me along. You just give me these little glances and hopes and then you forget the next day.
Who gave you the right? Huh? Who gave you the right to act like you own me when I try to find comfort with someone else? Who gave you the right to play with me and then go back to your perfect little relationship? Call me bullshit and then crawl into my bed at night. I didn’t—“
“Harry, just—“
“Newsflash- friends don’t do that, Louis. I used to think I’ve found this kindred soul, this other part of me. At boot camp, I was childish enough to believe that all friends were like that. And I kept lying to myself until I couldn’t anymore. Because no, all friends don’t sleep in the same bed or always find each other’s eyes across a crowded room. Friends don’t ache to touch each other like we do and wither without it.
I fucking told you how I felt and you were so pissed you barfed on my shoes and then passed out. Didn’t even remember it the next day. It’s taken everything I’ve got to hold on, to not break down and just run away. But you keep testing my patience. So what do you want?”
Louis’ standing there with his eyes wide open and his hand stalled mid-air.
“What do you want from me, Louis?”
He’s still not moving and Harry can’t take it anymore because silence is all Louis’ ever given him. But it’s not enough anymore. He jumps off the ledge and throws the empty bottle against the farthest wall. The loud shattering of the glass seems to break Louis from his trance and he looks at Harry with wild eyes but Harry doesn’t care anymore.
He’s said all he had to say and he’s walking away from Louis when he feels small hands gripping his bare arms. They feel like brands on his freezing skin and he tells himself that’s the only reason he stops.
“I want you.”
Those are words he’s imagined hearing in that voice over and over for years but convinced himself he’d never actually hear. His head whips up to find Louis looking at him with frantic eyes and a pleading face.
“What?”
Because if there’s one thing Louis Tomlinson has taught him in life, it’s to never believe that good things come easily.
“I didn’t think you wanted me. I thought I was the only one mad about you. I didn’t even think you remembered that night.”
“I tried to talk to you about it—“
“I just always thought you were going to tell me to back off. I do remember everything from every night, I was just scared you’d walk away if I ever told you how I felt.”
“And where’d you get that idea? From the three times I kissed you?”
“Always drunk. And you never brought it up again, I thought you’d forgotten?”
“Why didn’t you bring it up?”
“Yeah? And say what? ‘Oh hey mate, can you dump your girlfriend and start going out with me?’”
“What about your girlfriend? Isn’t she the—“
“She knows.”
“What?”
“She knows. About you. I told her last year.”
“You told her but you couldn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Louis, you fucking prick.”
“You’re the prick.”
And he does that thing with his face where he frowns just the tiniest bit and his nose twitches for second before he looks up at him and Harry just can’t take stop himself.
He rushes forward and crushes his lips against Louis’ which earns him a surprised noise and he only leans in further and brushes his lips against Louis’ soft ones. His hand goes up to grip Louis’ cheek and in his drunken haze he’s somehow picked Louis up and got him pinned against a wall while his tongue licks Louis’ lips.
Louis squirms a bit in his grip and his hands go around his neck and then he parts his lips in a sigh, Harry’s licking into his mouth and he’s lost all concept of time and space. Next thing he knows it’s all a tangle of arms around his neck, hands pulling on his curls roughly as teeth and lips and tongues intermingle with loud pants and heavy breaths.
He doesn’t remember much after that other than how Paul had come up the fire escape and loudly and pointedly cleared his throat before uncomfortably pulling them apart physically. To say that things were heated would be an understatement.
Louis had looked absolutely wrecked when Harry got his eyes on him in proper lighting. His hair was no longer the perfect quiff it had been all day, his lips were definitely swollen and those pants were tighter than they were supposed to be.
Out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen Louis wipe off a trickle of blood from his lips where he’d bitten too roughly and that was the moment Harry realized he might have a bit of a rough kink.
Everything after that had been a haze, his drunken mind had stopped processing right around the time he heard the words,
“Louis' mic was on, we heard everything. And it was live.”
***